


Clean Landing

by toofastandtoofurious



Series: Flutzing Through Romance [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aggressive love for figure skating, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Gen, ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating, M/M, author is traumatized by their love of this fucking sport, but i also hate it so, i'm yelling there's a tag for grand prix ok, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toofastandtoofurious/pseuds/toofastandtoofurious
Summary: The white, almost fluorescent lights of the rink are the same everywhere, Joe thinks absentmindedly, as he goes through his warm-up jumping passes, one by one, and doesn’t care about rotating them perfectly. Singles, doubles, sloppily landed with no precision or care. Not yet anyway, he needs to get his muscles going, to feel the ice, to get used to the dig of the blade into it. The others finish their laps around the rink or start their run throughs, someone else’s music plays through the speakers and Joe cringes. It’s probably Merrick’s but then it has so many cuts that Joe truly has no presence of mind to remember the details.He glances around to find Nicky, which isn’t difficult, him being easily the tallest of the group. Nicky tests the jump entries and offers a secret smile and a curt nod when he sees Joe.ORIt's pre-Olympic cycle, it's Grand Prix Final, it's the last warm-up before the short program, and Nicky and Joe have the eyes for the gold (and each other)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Flutzing Through Romance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018120
Comments: 17
Kudos: 75





	Clean Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! Finally Flutzing Through Romance, the AU that I started on Tumblr (@toofastandtoofurious) months ago, is a series, and this is the first installment! Thanks to everyone who cheered for me and followed my posts as I was absolutely losing my mind about skating.

The white, almost fluorescent lights of the rink are the same everywhere, Joe thinks absentmindedly, as he goes through his warm-up jumping passes, one by one, and doesn’t care about rotating them perfectly. Singles, doubles, sloppily landed with no precision or care. Not yet anyway, he needs to get his muscles going, to feel the ice, to get used to the dig of the blade into it. The others finish their laps around the rink or start their run throughs, someone else’s music plays through the speakers and Joe cringes. It’s probably Merrick’s but then it has so many cuts that Joe truly has no presence of mind to remember the details.

He glances around to find Nicky, which isn’t difficult, him being easily the tallest of the group. Nicky tests the jump entries and offers a secret smile and a curt nod when he sees Joe.

Joe notices Copley sitting with his laptop, buried into a scarf up to his nose and holding a cup of coffee that Booker and his new partner Nile bought for him before Lykon herded them to their own gym warm-up. James surely telegraphs all jumping passes to his Twitter, rotations and details, and dad jokes sprinkled in with funny gifs. Joe wonders, as he lands his Sal into a spread eagle and tests the edge of the blade that digs deeper easily, how Copley even functions between running to all four warm-ups, press conferences, and sleep. Maybe he just doesn’t. He saw the man nearly pass out last year at Worlds after all, so Joe needs to remember to buy him a cup of coffee and a meal when he has a minute. The perspective of seeing Copley lose him mind (and nourishment) at next year’s Olympics kind of worries Joe...but it also will be very funny.

They’re in Spain for the Grand Prix Final, and the flight from Montreal definitely took its toll on everyone. Joe’s grateful that he and Nicky were allowed to arrive a day earlier than expected as acclimatization hits Nicky the hardest. A couple of years ago Andy took one look at his deepened eye bags after doing Rostelecom Cup and then immediately flying to Japan for NHK Trophy, and told the Italian federation in no uncertain terms that if they wanted Nicky to keep winning medals, they needed to give him time to adapt. That is, if he can beat Joe, of course, and Joe has no intention of giving Nicky the gold that easily. Nicky’ll have to be better than he’s ever been. With that thought, Joe smirks and goes to Andy who waves him over with a stern look on her face while Nicky forces himself through his spins. Joe has to wince; those positions look really fucking uncomfortable, _and they are._

Andy stands guarding their water bottles and paper tissues, eyeing the rink like a hawk. She is intimidating: Russian, tall, a 3-time World Champion in her day, her Olympic performances have become classics. Only Quynh could really beat her, the two of them were iconic rivals back then, and when The Russian Shark, as people called her, announced her starting a coaching team with Quynh as her choreographer and moving to Montreal, skaters stood in line to become her students but were afraid of what her methods would be. Nicky and Joe know better, however. She’s been coaching them for three years now and Joe hasn’t seen a coach more attentive and helpful than her. She never coddles them, far from that, but, as she gives him his water, she tilts her head just so that it calms something down in Joe, something he didn’t even realize he had. She’s a fantastic fucking coach, and they’re so damn lucky she took them back then.

“Pretty good, Joe, but pay attention on the Lutz edge, okay? We don’t want it to be reviewed, get it clean. Hold your rotations tighter, don’t lean too forward, and you should be fine.” Joe nods to her softly accented Italian as he wipes the sweat off his forehead. Lutz has never been his best jump, so it’s not surprising. He almost turns around to go back and do more passes to train his landing and test his spins, but Nicky takes his opening position in the middle of the rink as the skaters migrate to the corners to practice. Joe grips the water bottle tighter and leans against the border with no intention to go back. Andy briefly glances at him before seemingly zeroing in on Nicky and smirks.

“Wanna look at your boy?”

Joe can only nod, small smile playing on his lips as well. He could deny it and play coy, but Andy really sees through him, through both of them. There haven’t been any secrets between them, at least not since she invited them both to her and Quynh’s house for their first New Year in Canada, when neither of them were able to fly back home in time, and Joe was afraid Nicky would get crushed under the homesickness and the guilt. Plus it’s not likely he would be able to truly enjoy Nicky’s performance later that evening, to really enjoy it, being too focused on the prep to his own short skate and then immediately running to do press wouldn’t do it favors, so Joe stands with her and savors the moment.

Nicky’s music starts playing, and Joe can’t take his eyes off him as Nicky’s blades glide almost silently through his opening choreo. He doesn’t pour his heart out, it’s just a warmup, but there is something special about the artistry of his hands that balance out his razor-sharp focus already set in his eyes. Joe holds his breath as Nicky lands his quad Lutz right on the music accent, his edge going deep into the ice, carving into it like a butter knife, and his knees soft, cat-like.

Joe can see some of his style in Nicky’s as he lands his combo after the spin and goes right into the step sequence. He listens, truly listens to the music and lets it pass through him, every movement right in the accents, right in the beat. Joe remembers a 13-year-old Nicky, back at Juniors, intense and graceful, slightly Bambi-like off the ice but too closed off, too focused on the technique. The Nicky he sees now is someone different. He’s skilled, he’s precise and fast, but most importantly, he’s an artist using the edges and the lines of his body to tell a story.

The other skaters momentarily stop their run throughs to watch him, too, and the air feels thick, charged with something Joe really can’t put a finger on. If this atmosphere is what Nicky will channel at the competition, then Joe will have to be not just good, he’ll have to be perfect. That challenge excites him, that push and pull that they have. In the corner of his eye, Joe sees Merrick land a quad that no one pays attention to as Nicky goes into the final jump, his Axel. The axis is off and Joe nervously holds his breath, almost anticipating the fall, but Nicky lands, triumphant, hands forming into celebratory fists, and Joe claps with relief. Just the last spin is left, and Nicky finishes, holding his final position for a second, until he relaxes and bows to a small group of fans at the rink who enthusiastically applaud. Joe glances at Copley, and James gives him a thumbs up before turning to his laptop again.

Nicky skates to the border, not having lost his breath at all, the bastard, and gratefully nods as Andy gives him the water bottle. Joe pats him on the shoulder and Nicky beams at him. His smile is so bright and Joe swears all post-flight exhaustion melts off him right that moment. He wants to drag him around Madrid and be typical tourists, he wants to drag him to their shared hotel room, he wants to look at him forever. Andy taps on the bottles, startling Joe, and Nicky’s attention is back on her. Focused, ignoring everything else, a peculiar tension in his jaw – Nicky is a skater with a bite, after all.

“How was it?”

Andy’s expression is unreadable to the outsiders but Joe knows she’s impressed before she even speaks.

“Good, really fucking good. Do a few more passes on the Axel, though, your axis was off, no idea how you managed to squeeze it out. Looked rotated, too, but we gotta work on that”, - Nicky nods to that, already calculating something in his head. - “Keep your fucking spins tight and you can really give Joe a run for his money, huh?”

Andy laughs and Nicky winks at Joe, elbowing him to the side, “Well, it’s your turn now, isn’t it?”. It’s not even the competition yet, and there are no stakes, but as Joe skates to his opening spot, as he hears Nicky’s encouraging whooping, as his music starts playing, he can’t help but want to show him what he’s made of so Nicky never looks away.

**Author's Note:**

> Please talk to me about this dumb AU on tumblr, I need to YELL. Also how do you think, who wins the title of a Grand Prix Champion?


End file.
